KVIFF Eastern Promises

The festival curates projects in-the-making which at the time of their presentation seek partners for production or post-production, international sales or festival premieres. All film projects span the region of Central, Eastern and post-soviet Europe, with the new addition of the territories of the Middle East. Filmmakers and producers pitch scripts in development, films in production or post-production as well as documentary projects – all selected from a wide array of highly competitive submissions.

In 2024, following programmes will be held during the Industry Days:

Works in Progress

Selection of 12 fiction and documentary films in all stages of post-production from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and North Africa. The most promising projects will be awarded the post-production services package and cash prizes. These projects are often selected for the upcoming festivals such as Sundance, Toronto, Venice, Rotterdam or Berlinale.

Works in Development – KVIFF Talents

Discover a new wave of creativity with KVIFF Talents, presented for the second time by the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. KVIFF Talents consists of two separate programmes, Feature Pool for feature films at the idea stage and Creative Pool, for audiovisual works of any format and genre, whether it's a short film, TVseries, music video, game concept or beyond. In this session you will be introduced to six upcoming projects in the proposal stage.

Works in Development - Feature Launch & Intensive Queer

Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has partnered closely with the MIDPOINT Institute script and project development program as well as When East Meets West co-production market and Trieste Film Festival. Together they will showcase 9 projects from Central and Eastern Europe at this year’s edition of KVIFF. These projects have gone through development within the Works in Development – Feature Launch program and are ready for co-production. In this edition, there will also be four projects from the MIDPOINT Intensive Queer program. Initiative dedicated to promote diversity in storytelling.

First Cut+ Works in Progress

First Cut+ is a program launched in 2020 for boosting the promotion & audience engagement strategies of feature films that previously took part in a First Cut Lab workshop. The event is open to selected decision makers (sales agents & distributors, festivals’ programmers, etc). A jury awards the TRT Prize to one of the films – a cash award of 5 000 Euros sponsored by the Turkish public broadcaster.

First Cut Lab

First Cut Lab Karlovy Vary is a programme designed for 2 long feature fiction films in editing phase from the Czech Republic or Slovakia. Selected producer/director teams will screen their full rough cut in a private session and receive expert feedback on their edit from three top international film professionals (creative producers, festival programmers, sales agents, etc) as well as tailor-made advice from a consultant editor.

Discontinued programmes of past years Industry Days:

Eurimages Lab Project Award

The award was aimed to the most promising film project at the Karlovy Vary IFF. Eurimages wished to invest in new forms of cinematographic expression often crossing to other art forms.

Docs in Progress

In the past years at this event, producers and directors from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and North Africa introduced new documentary films. The most promising project of Docs in Progress used to receive a cash award in a total value of 5 000 EUR. In 2022 documentary and fiction films merged into Works in Progress.

Odesa International Film Festival Works in Progress Selection

The unprecedented military assault on Ukraine has been accompanied by fundamental limitations to the country’s cultural life. The Karlovy Vary IFF expressed its full support for Ukrainian filmmakers and festival organizers, and thus hosted the Works-in-Progress program of the 13th Odesa International Film Festival 2022, which could not be held there because of the war.